New South Wales is now in a state of emergency because of the bushfires.  You can help with a donation to the Red Cross.   Meanwhile:  The American President tries to stop the damage from the abortive rollout of “Obamacare” – One of the last witnesses from inside the cold war is gone – But the PM of Japan seems intent to start a new Cold War with his Asian neighbors.

US President Barack Obama is calling out the big dogs to redo the website that is supposed to get people signed up for “Obamacare”.  The Affordable Care Act “healthcare.gov” website has been plagued by glitches, and people haven’t been able to sign up for lower rates on their soon-to-be mandatory health insurance.  The White House is drawing from across the government and from private companies to help rewrite computer code, and stop the crashing.

The widow of Marshal Josip Broz Tito is the dead; Jovanka Broz was “one of the last most reliable witnesses of our former country's history, according to Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic.  Jovanka was at Tito’s side as he ruled the former Yugoslav Federation during the cold war, steering it as a non-aligned state between the West and the Soviet Bloc.  But after Tito died and Yugoslavia degenerated into seven warring states, she lived in isolation in a house with no heating and electricity, which Dacic says was an “historic injustice.”

Nearly 2,000 police in another former Yugoslavian republic fired tear gas against conservative extremists who hurled rocks on a gay rights parade.  This happened in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.  The march is seen as a crucial test of the small mountain nation’s commitment to human rights, as it is in the early stages of trying to join the European Union.  Two months ago, right wing hooligans broke up the country’s first attempt at a Gay rights Parade.  This time, the cops protected the freedom activists, who carried signs reading, “These streets belong to us, too.”

Cops in Egypt fought supporters of former president Mohamed Morsi as they tried to march on the protest campsite of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the government destroyed several weeks ago.  The campsite is off-limits to all protesters.  The protesters were students from Al-Azhar University, a Sunni Muslim institution. 

Another day, another suicide bombing in Syria.  This one, north of Damascus, killed at least 30-people.  And once again, the bomber is from the al Nusra front, a rebel faction linked to al Qaeda, and the Sunni side of the Islamic schism.  The bomber drove a truck packed with explosives to checkpoint and set it off, igniting a nearby petrol tanker.

In Baghdad, a Suicide bomber drove a minibus packed with explosives into a cafe in a Shia neighborhood, killing at least 35 people and leaving more than 45 injured.  The café was a popular hang out for young people in the neighborhood, who were watching a soccer game on TV.

At least 40 people died in India from drinking illegal, bootleg liquor at a religious festival in Uttar Pradesh.  Among those who died was the son of the shopkeeper who had sold the liquor, distributed in little plastic bags.  Despite incidents like these, illegal alcohol sales remain popular in rural India, mostly because it’s cheap.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to visit the controversial Yasukuni War Memorial Shrine in Toyko before the end of the year.  It will likely anger many of Japan’s Asian neighbors, since Yasukuni honors several war criminals from World War II.  Ties with China and South Korea are already strained because of territorial disputes and economic competition.